Is your child developing normally?
Every kid is different, of course, but research shows that there are things you could and should be doing to appropriately stimulate and engage your toddler. There is increasing evidence that experience-based brain development in the early years of life sets neurological and biological pathways that affect lifelong health, learning and behaviour.
To help you understand and enhance your child's early development, Dr. Stuart Shanker, president of the Council of Early Child Development, was online earlier to take your questions.
Your questions and Dr. Shanker's answers appear at the bottom of this page.
Dr. Stuart Shanker
Dr. Shanker was recently appointed the President of the Council for Early Child Development (CECD). In recent years, he has learned a great deal about brain development in the first three years of a child's life and believes that an alarming number of children are not receiving the experiences they need. He views the CECD as an excellent opportunity to put science into action for children in communities.
He is also co-director of the Council for Human Development and is distinguished research professor of philosophy and psychology at York University. He is currently serving as director of the Milton and Ethel Harris Research Initiative (MEHRI) at York University, a privately funded initiative whose goal is to build on new knowledge of the brain's development, and help set children (including those with developmental disorders) on the path towards emotional and intellectual health.
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Rasha Mourtada, Globe Life web editor: Good morning, Dr. Shanker, and thanks for coming online today. We've got lots of questions, so I'm going to get right to them.
Niobe Thompsn, Edmonton: We are raising a girl toddler (19 months) in a biligual Danish-English environment. In all respects, our daughter seems happy, curious and socially engaged, but she is certainly not as far along in acquiring language as her peers (who live in unilingual homes). Our pediatrician has even suggested we get her hearing checked, although we know her hearing is fine. We have heard that children often start using language later when they are exposed to two languages from early on. Could this be the cause of our daughter's delay, or should be worried that something might be wrong?
Stuart Shanker: Let me respond to this question both as a psychologist and as a parent, as we did the same thing with our son (English and Spanish). There is some evidence of a slight lag in acquiring the first language, and this is definitely something we observed with our own son. However, there is also evidence that when the child does begin to speak he or she progresses through the 'language milestones' very quickly, and this was also something we saw in our son. Finally, a colleague of mine, Professor Ellen Bialystok, has done extensive research on the effects of exposure to two languages on a child's cognitive development, and she has shown that this results in a cognitive advantage in the child's attentional abilities around the age of 3 or 4, although unilingual children begin to catch up fairly quickly after that. As an aside, when my son speaks Spanish he does so with a beautiful accent, and he also has a remarkable ability to mimic other types of sounds (such as bird sounds). Of course, he might have had this ability from the start, which is why he was able to pick up Spanish and English sounds. But one always wonders.
I would only add that if the pediatrician has some concerns and would like to have her hearing checked, I cannot see what harm this could do. But I am reassured by your opening comment that your daughter is happy, curious and socially engaged. By the latter we would want to see her, not just paying attention to or responding to other people in social encounters, but also initiating interactions with sounds, gestures, looks etc. We would also want to be sure that she can stay 'engaged' for more than just a fleeting moment -- e.g., that she's able to exchange back-and-forth signals with her parents about something for more than just a few seconds.
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